January 2013

Tracking

November 12, 2007

A Good Samaritan

For me this is a
sad post, because I felt that I could not allow the passing of The Reverend
Chad Varah to go without commenting. Dr Varah, who died aged 95, founded the Samaritans.
The secular charity started with one telephone line in London and grew into a
global organisation supporting millions of desperate and desolate people. He
once said that the volunteers were people “who cannot bring themselves to pass
by on the other side when somebody's needing them." On the BBC news
website there are a number of wonderful comments and tributes to Dr Varah and the
work of the Samaritans follow the link

I have blogged many
times on the benefits of volunteering both to those in need and to the
volunteers themselves and there are 17,000 people supporting the Samaritans in
the UK and over 5 million contacts were made last year. Dr Varah truly left his
human imprint!